David Elias Callaham (sometimes credited as Dave Callaham born on October 24, 1977) is an American film writer.
Personal life
Callaham was born in Fresno, California on October 24, 1977. Callaham studied English at the University of Michigan and graduated in 1999. He is married to Bree Tichy. They were married in 2009. Callaham is a Brown Belt in 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu under Eddie Bravo.
Career
After reading an article in Penthouse magazine focusing on the lifestyle of Hollywood TV writers, Callaham and a friend drove to Los Angeles with plans to write comedies together. They sent query letters to multiple agencies but never received responses. Callaham worked at Creative Artists Agency for a while, sometimes submitted his material secretly for coverage.
In 2003, Callaham wrote the film adaption to the video game Doom and submitted it in the summer of 2005. Around that time, Callaham wrote Barrow for Warner Bros., a mercenary-inspired action script which later became The Expendables. Callaham was credited for story and characters after Sylvester Stallone used Callaham's Barrow script as a "starting point" for The Expendables. In 2010, Legendary Pictures hired Callaham to write the first draft for Godzilla. In 2014, Callaham completed a rewrite for Marvel's Ant-Man and was hired to write the Zombieland sequel for Sony and Jackpot for Focus Features.
Lawsuit
In late 2013, Nu Image and Millennium Films filed a lawsuit against Callaham and the Writers Guild of America West for fraud, unjust enrichment and declaratory relief over a "flawed and misinformed" Guild arbitration that gave Callaham undeserved writing credit for The Expendables and The Expendables 2. The Plaintiffs demand reimbursements from Callaham for any payments made to him for his fraud credit in the two films.
When Sylvester Stallone was developing the script for The Expendables, Callaham claimed that Stallone used his script, Barrow, as the source for The Expendables. A WGA arbitration was ignited in which Callaham won and additionally earned $102,250 in bonus payments. However, the plaintiffs have uncovered emails from Callaham admitting that his script is nothing like Stallone's script.
Filmography
- Doom (2005)
- Horsemen (2009)
- Tell Tale (2009)
- The Expendables (2010)
- The Expendables 2 (2012) (characters)
- Godzilla (2014)
- Ant-Man (2015)
- Untitled Zombieland Sequel (TBA)
- Jackpot (TBA)
References
External links
- David Callaham at the Internet Movie Database